タグ: cooking

Cooking from Scratch

I cook for me and my old mother every day. What I always try in my cooking is to avoid a processed food and to cook from the scratch. I go to a supermarket frequently and always buy food that is natural ingredients. I need to buy vegetables, fruits, fishes, egg, meat, and so on. luckily enough, I don’t need to buy green vegetables recently, because I can get them from my garden.

Daikon Leaves that I got from my Garden

Daikon leaves eventually become too hard to chew. So, it is important to use young leaves by thinning in early stage of their growing

I cook, because my mother can no longer cook, though it is still okay for her to boil water with a kettle, and to wash the dishes. Old people gradually lose their functions in daily life. It is more obvious in the case of dementia. The important thing is to let them do what they can do by using their remaining functions. My mother still has one important function, that is shopping. She can go to a supermarket and a convenience store nearby (, though she uses cash).

Salad that my mother bought today from a convenience store.

Going shopping by herself is basically good, however, here’s another problem. She buys what she wants to eat like oily food and/or processed food which her son is trying to avoid. When she comes back home, she shows me what she bought. And I always see those unhealthy foods. I wonder what is inside salad which says its expiry is the morning of the day after tomorrow. I feel the taste of chemical preservatives whenever eating a such salad.

A lot of chemicals are being used in the processed food

It seems that most people like the taste of processed food of convenience stores. But I don’t like them. For me, taste of those foods is just of chemical seasonings. Therefore, I cook by myself from the scratch with natural ingredients.

As they grow, their number need to reduce by picking; Red radish and Carrots

I came back in Japan in July. Since then, I have been pulling the weeds, getting rid of roots of the weeds, cultivating soil, and planting seeds of vegetables in my garden. This work still continues. Though my garden is small tiny one, but there are a lot of things to do. Now in September, it’s the time to thin radish and green leaves. This is to give them a space for growing more by reducing the numbers. In this process, If it’s a small sprout, I just throw it. But now they have grown, I don’t waste them, but eat. Today I picked some red radish and carrots. Since the radish and carrots are still small, I use their leaves. In the supper tonight, radish’s leaves were used in Miso soup, and carrots’ leaves were cut in small and stir-fried with sausage.

Don’t go watching TV while keeping a FIRE on the Gas stove.

I have told my mother the same thing again and again. But the failure repeated.

When she wants to drink coffee or tea, she puts a fire on the gas stove in the kitchen. Usually, it takes several minutes until water gets boiled in the kettle. She can’t wait for it, and then goes to her room to watch TV.

In the case of boiling water, sometimes it ends up drying up in the kettle. Worse is the case of cooking, food inside becomes charcoal, and the pan no longer to be used. Thanks to the modern technology, the gas stove in my kitchen is set to stop in thirty minutes. But quite often these vapor and charcoal happens within thirty minutes.

It is sad to say, but because of her age, my mother can neither learn from the failure, nor to use the knowledge of new experiences in order to avoid repeating the same thing to happen.

Given that situation, I thought I need to do something for the matter. Not allowing her to use the gas stove is one thing. But at the same time, I have to give her a way to drink hot coffee herself so that she can activate her remaining ability.

I know that if a Gas company employee look at this, the person would give me a strong warning. But this is my solution for the time being. I put an Induction Cooking Heater on top of the gas stove in day time between the time I finish cooking breakfast and the time I start cooking supper. Of course, I close the gas valve when putting the “IH cooker”. Actually, the switches of gas valve are right under the switches for burning. But once I close the valve, my mother cannot open it herself.

I made this stuff by myself. By the way, three burners are good for busy cooking.

I made Three Bottles of Apple Jam using “Kougyoku” that I got in my Garden

An apple “Kougyoku” is a little sour. The apples are suitable to be processed with heat, rather than eating fresh. Since I had put three of them in refrigerator, I made jam in the early evening today.

There are many ways to make apple jam. Today I made it by grating the apples. Apple peels are rich in pectin, so, I wanted to use those peels in the jam.

Many cooking recipes on the web say that sugar must be 50 percent of weight. But I am not sure about this 50%; Is it 50% of weight of fruits, or 50% of the entire weight of jam? Anyway, I don’t have a cooking scale, so, I just put a lot of sugar in the pan by intuition. I think the sugar must be 50% of the weight of the jam in order to keep the jam longer.

Though I forgot to take a picture, I did “boiling disinfection”. I closed the lids of bottle loosely, put the bottles in a big pan, boiled water in the pan with gas fire, and then closed the lids tightly by my hands with gloves.

I got three bottles. I will use them for toast of my breakfast from tomorrow morning. It will save some cost of living.

Fig Compote; a Way to Preserve When you got a lot of Figs.

Not a lot, but I got eight figs. They were the first harvest from the garden in this fall. The problem is that you cannot keep it long. You need to eat, or do something to preserve figs in the day you got them. They soon get bad.　

So I decided making compote. As to sugar, cane sugar and beet sugar are available in Japan. I don’t think that beet sugar is sweet enough. This time I chose cane sugar that was not refined to be completely white. So the sugar has a little bit color of brown. I poured a small amount of water into pan. Perhaps that water was not necessary because water came out of figs.

You see seven figs in the pan. One was left because it didn’t fit in that pan. I ate it fresh. Actually that one tasted enough sweet. Not bad.

I heated by the gas with low flame. By the way, you don’t need to peel off when making fig compote. I think it is better to leave them unpeeled to keep the shape. On the other, I peel figs off when I make jam.

　

Fig compote is finished. I like the pink color of fig compote. Although this time the syrup is not so clear, because I used a-little-brown cane sugar. I chilled it in fridge and actually I have already eaten them. I think I will drink syrup by diluting with soda.

Sticky and Stinky, Fermented Soy Beans “Natto” is a Must for Japanese Breakfast

Now the season of Okra is ending. The okras in my garden have become taller than me, but many leaves have fallen. I can get only two or three okras a day. These days I am thinking about cut those okras and remove them from the field.

Okras should not be boiled long. It should be just one minute or so, very short time.

　

And then I sliced the boiled okras, and chopped green onions.

　

Here came “Natto” that is fermented soy beans. Japanese like to eat Natto in breakfast. I don’t think it is appropriate to mention bathroom things while talking about food and meal. But let me tell you. Natto is so stinky, if you eat it in your breakfast, you will smell it in your urine in the bathroom. Not just in the morning, it continues until noon.

　

Mixing natto with sliced okra and chopped green onion, I pored just a little bit of Soy sauce.

　

This is the main dish of my breakfast of the day. Usually there is omelet, but this particular morning, pork was there, because I cooked much pork in the previous night.

　

Okay, this is my breakfast on September 30, 2021.

So Many Thanks to Likes from Cooking Blogs, Though I’m not Good at It.

The morning glory has started blooming at the entrance of my house. They are not Japanese species but western morning glory named “Heavenly Blue”.

I have to express my thanks to those cooking/cuisine blogs that like my tiny little blog. But I don’t think I am a good cooking person. I just boil everything in hot water. That’s it.

For example, I put those pieces of carrot and purple beans into Miso-Soup, with tofu.

Of course I don’t boil tomato, most of the time. These tomato, green beans, and okra came from my garden.

It is rare for me to heat with oil in a pan. But I tried it yesterday. I think I should have put more green leaves because they were shrunk by the heat.

Cooking a supper takes more than one hour. Usually it is one hour and 20 minutes for me to cook. But I eat what I cooked within 15 minutes. Long cooking time but short eating time.